


Ghosts.

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Ghosts, Other, kind of weird like skipping with time and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts when he's twelve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts.

He had always been strange, but nobody knew truly to what extent. They knew of his unmarried mother, they knew of his absent father, and they knew of his poor upbringing.

What they didn't know was that Alexander can see ghosts.

It starts when he was twelve. He and James are still mourning the death of their mother, the pain a constant in their minds. He's woken up one night by the same reoccurring nightmare of staring at his mother's cold, dead eyes as her body is taken from their shared cot. When he finally opens his eyes, he almost screams. His mother is standing over him, as healthy as ever.

"Mother?" Alexander asks. James is asleep in the other bed across the room.

"It's me, _mon cher_ ," she says. In the short time she has been dead, Alexander has missed her accent. He's missed her voice and her face. He had forgotten what she looked like when she was healthy.

"I should wake James. He will want to see you." Alexander tries to get up, but his mother places her hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

"I tried to wake him, but I am afraid I have no affect on him. You are the only one who can see me," She explains. Alexander deflates a bit. He is made an outsider once again.

His mother isn't always there after that. She comes and she goes, showing up in and out of Alexander's life like a thunderstorm. She's always there when he needs her, and she always knows when to take a step back.

When he's fourteen his cousin is found in his bed, bathing in his own blood. The summer heat causes the horrid smell of his decomposing corpse to hang over the house like the ghost of him that Alex sees when he finds him.

"I'm sorry," is all his ghost says to Alex before he disappears and never comes back to him again.

Peter Lytton leaves them nothing in his will. Alexander and James try not to be selfish, but they can't help but be upset at the fact that they are once again left with nothing.

When he's seventeen, the hurricane hits. His mother holds him in his bedroom at the Stevens' house. He's shaking uncontrollably, terrified. Alexander feels suffocated and trapped. His mother kisses his hair and tries to calm him down like when he was a child, but not even she can save him from this. Nothing can. He is motionlessly clawing at life, hoping he survives this.

When it clears and it's finally over, Alex is facing a crowd of talking ghosts all compacted into the room. They're all talking over one another, some are crying, some are interrogating Alex. None of them remember it. They don't remember drowning or dying. There's one woman off to the side of the room, her eyes closed, clutching her infant daughter to her chest.

Alex screams, pleading them to leave. Some see his pain, and leave him to be in peace. Most of them don't, their pain more important to them than his is.

"You're dead. You're all dead. You'll never see your families or your loved ones again. I am the only one who can see you and you are all dead. Please, please, just leave me alone. I understand you still have questions, but not now. Please."

 Evidently, that is enough for the remainder of the ghosts, and they all disappear into wherever they go. He arrives in America two years later. His mother holds his hand on the boat when he's surrounded by sickness, the boat lurching almost as frequently as his stomach.

This war is a bloody one. The camp is full of ghosts that all whisper about Alex as if he knows that he can hear them. His first day working for Washington, he finds three dead soldiers reading his private correspondence over his shoulder. He's not sure whether to laugh or pity them. He stares into their eyes when they look up at him.

"Can this guy...?" One of them asks the other two when Washington starts speaking.

"There's no way." The middle one says.

"Guys, he can totally see us," the third one remarks, walking up to him. Alex steps on his foot, giving him a warning look. He backs up to the other two, all three of their faces showing a matching look of fear.

Somehow being around the dead soldiers makes it easier. These men do not play around when it comes to Alexander's life, either. They are very protective of him sometimes, especially when Alexander is overworking himself or reckless.

When Alexander finally realizes that his mother doesn't visit him anymore, that she's left Alexander to continue into this chapter of his life without her, he shuts himself up in his tent and cries. It feels like he's lost her all over again. His soldier friends don't visit him then, knowing when he needs to be alone the most.

On October 17th, 1781, thousands and thousands of dead soldiers are screaming along with the alive ones, and Alex feels like he is staring out across an ocean with the amount of blue coats jumping like waves. The Battle of Yorktown is won, and Alex is alive to see it.

On August 27th of the next year, another loved one appears to him. When Alexander sees his bloodied face and clothes, he knows what's happened. He didn't open the door. He didn't need to. When Alex's head whips around to see him, he jumps back, terrified.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost," Alex remarks jokingly, effectively shocking the other man.

"I'm dead, Alex. You shouldn't be able to see me."

"I've always been able to see dead people. It started with my mother and the people who were lost in a hurricane when I was seventeen. I could see the dead soldiers at Washington's camp. I can see you, John." John watches over him for a long time after that. Alex can't help but be reminded of his mother.

It's seventeen years after John's death when James Hamilton appears in front of him. Alex is holding his son William when it happens. Alexander sets him in Eliza's arms, makes a quick excuse, and dashes off to his office.

"You need to leave," Alexander spits, having no desire to look at the man before him.

"Son-"

"You do not get to call me that."

"Like it or not I am your father."

"Like it or not you left us. You left my mother alone to be torn apart by society as often as they pleased to. You left me and James as orphans after she died. Death chased us like it was a game but apparently that didn't matter to you. You need to leave. Leave and never speak to me again."

"I apologize for what I did."

"But you are not sorry." And with those final closing words thrown at him, James Hamilton leaves for the second time in Alexander's life.

Washington does not visit him when he dies, and Alex tries not to feel bitter. His son however, does visit him. Alex feels like he's hiding something from Eliza when he arrives. He feels once again like he's cheating on her, but this time it's because he is able to see their dead son, and she is not. Sometimes when she's crying over him, finding it hard to stop, Alexander tells her what Philip is saying. He keeps it vague enough that she wouldn't find it abnormal, but still with the same idea. Eliza is thankful for that.

When Alexander dies, he appears to Little Philip. His youngest son waddles towards him, only to run directly through his legs.

"I'm sorry," Alexander whispers, and disappears. He never goes back.       


End file.
